Chamber and committees

I have significant concerns about that. I know that I am not alone in the chamber in being concerned about the impact of the withdrawal of furlough while the pandemic and what we are having to do to control it are still having an impact on the economy and on businesses and workers more generally. In the weeks and months to come, we will need to see exactly what that impact is. I expect that there will be an impact in terms of jobs lost. Of course, we also have acute labour shortages across our economy.

The Scottish Government is anxious to make sure that, through Skills Development Scotland and the other work that we do on employability, we match available skills with job vacancies. However, we are going into an uncertain period in terms of employment, labour shortages and the overall impact on the economy. It would have been preferable if furlough had remained in place for longer, but that decision was not made by the Scottish Government.

I am happy to write to the member on the matter and put details in the Scottish Parliament information centre in order to keep my answer as brief as possible.

On the interoperability between England and Scotland, those issues have been addressed. We continue to add other countries. People from other countries can get proof of vaccination in their own country for use here. Obviously, I do not know the circumstances in which the member’s constituent was unable to get a Covid vaccination passport, but if she passes the details to me, I will be happy to have that looked into. I also undertake to set out and provide to the Scottish Parliament information centre the different categories of people—such as people who live here who have been vaccinated somewhere else, and visitors—and the current arrangements for them to access their vaccination status.

That will happen where possible. I know some people who are already in that category and will get their booster vaccine and their flu jag in the same visit.

There is a recommended time gap between the second vaccine and the booster, which the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation set out in its advice. If memory serves me correctly, the gap should be six months. That will guide the timing of booster vaccinations, which is why someone in my age group will wait longer for the booster vaccination than someone in my parents’ age group.

Those vaccinations are under way. Health and care staff, those over 70 and those in the highest-risk group are being given booster vaccinations first and we will then work through the rest of the recommended population in the order in which they got their initial vaccination, in order to take account of the recommended time gap.

Those are important issues, but I stress that, as we get to the very high uptake levels that we are seeing now, decisions that individual health boards take about the best way to deliver vaccinations are not driven by staff shortages, but driven by consideration of the most effective use of resources. When we reach a point, as we have with many age groups, where relatively small numbers of people are not yet vaccinated, drop-in clinics that are open all day may not be the most effective way to reach those people. Offering appointments can be more effective. In bigger health board areas, there will be a different consideration. The issue is about recognising the progress that has been made, the current situation and how health boards are best placed to reach those who are not yet vaccinated.

The percentages are small, but within those percentages there are still lots of people whom we want to reach. Given their different geographies, it is therefore important that we allow health boards to exercise some judgment and discretion about how best to reach those people. The health secretary stays close to those discussions with all health boards.

It would be good if, occasionally, the Scottish Conservatives raised any of those concerns with their counterparts in London. I am not convinced that their counterparts in London pay any attention to them, incidentally, but that is another matter altogether.

There is a serious issue at the heart of this. The Tories are, right now, raising taxes for businesses and individuals at a really difficult time for the economy, as we try to recover from the pandemic. As we know, Brexit has also caused acute labour shortages across our economy, which are making it difficult to get certain foodstuffs to supermarket shelves and for people to access fuel reliably.

Those problems will simply increase and get worse over the winter unless the UK Government really stops and thinks about the impact of its actions and comes up with solutions. All of us should be demanding that it comes up with those solutions—and quickly.

The police are not routinely filling in for the Scottish Ambulance Service. [Interruption.] It has not asked the police to take patients to hospital. It may well be the case that, if a police officer comes across somebody who needs to go to hospital, they will opt to transfer them to hospital. I am not sure whether Alexander Stewart is suggesting that that should not be the case. However, that is not the result of a request from the Scottish Ambulance Service.

We face big challenges across our Ambulance Service and our national health service, just as do England, Wales, Northern Ireland and many countries around the world. We are taking action to respond to those challenges, and we are rightly and properly being robustly scrutinised on that, which I am sure will continue throughout the winter. However, let us not claim that things are happening across the country that are not happening.

As more and more people are vaccinated, health boards will of course change the configuration of the facilities that they have available. We will continue to ensure that facilities are available across the country to provide access that is as easy as possible to vaccination. I do not have today’s figures in front of me, but in the past few days, Scotland became the country of all four nations with the highest proportion of the adult population vaccinated.

The vaccination programme is a roaring success, but every person who remains unvaccinated is providing themselves with a vulnerability and adding to the overall vulnerability of the country. We will continue to take steps to get vaccination rates up as high as possible. Indeed, one of the reasons for vaccination certification is to provide an added incentive to get the vaccination rates as high as we can.

On the certification scheme, I have already made it clear that I do not consider the experience of the launch of the app last week to be remotely satisfactory. We have taken action to resolve the initial problems, the app is working well and we will continue to monitor it. The reason why we decided to leave a two-week gap between the legal requirement coming into force as planned, at 5 am on Friday, and enforcement was to give individuals and businesses the ability to test arrangements and get used to the rules.

We have taken the equity issues extremely seriously. That is why we have an alternative to the app for people who do not want to use it—as some will not—or people who are unable to use it because they are among those who do not have a passport or driving licence. Those people can request a paper copy or download a PDF file. It is important that we continue to have those alternatives in place, and they will be in place for anybody who needs them.

On COP26, we are working with the United Kingdom Government and the United Nations on the overall mitigations in place around the event. There are arrangements on testing and other mitigations that people who are attending COP26 will be required to comply with. We are co-operating with others on those arrangements, and I know that all of us, for all sorts of reasons, want COP26 to be a success.

There is a very—I stress very—small number of people in Scotland who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. There may be people who believe that they cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons but, actually, in very few cases will that turn out to be the case. However, medical exemptions allow those who cannot be vaccinated due to a health condition access to settings that would otherwise require vaccination, and people who are known to health boards to be in that category are being notified of that. Of course, over a period, it will also be possible for people who think that they are in that category but have not received that notification to apply for it.

It is important that people in that position are treated with kindness, dignity and understanding, but I want to stress again that there are very small numbers of people who cannot be vaccinated for health reasons.

I think that I covered this in response to a question last week. Work is on-going to ensure that the vaccine status of those who volunteer for clinical trials is correctly presented on the vaccine database. A letter confirming someone’s involvement in a trial has been issued to those who participated in the trials, and any participants who have not yet received a letter should contact their respective research teams. That letter can be used for domestic purposes as proof of trial status.

Individuals who are travelling abroad will still need to meet the requirements of their destination country when travelling—for example, a negative pre-departure test, if that is the arrangement and if that is stated by the relevant country. However, I stress that those in Scotland who took part in a trial will not be disadvantaged. That would be deeply unfair, given the great service that they have done the rest of us. They should have had a letter. If they have not had one, they should contact their respective research teams.

We carry out regular surveys of public opinion. In the most recent surveys, which take us up to the end of September, more than 80 per cent of respondents agreed that wearing a face covering was either very or fairly important and more than 90 per cent said that they were wearing face coverings when required to do so very or fairly often.

I think that that illustrates the point. I am sure that, if we asked people to say whether they like wearing face coverings, the numbers would be much, much lower, but I think that there is a pragmatic acceptance on the part of the public that certain mitigations are still required if we are to get through the next—and, we hope, final—phase of the pandemic over the winter. I think that those numbers on face coverings demonstrate that.